Infrastructure and economics

Main articles: Infrastructure, Economics, Business, and Finance

Infrastructure (also known as "capital goods", or "fixed capital") is a platform for governance, commerce, and economic growth and is "a lifeline for modern societies".[1] It is the hallmark of economic development.[2]

It has been characterized as the mechanism that delivers the "..fundamental needs of society: food, water, energy, shelter, governance ... without infrastructure, societies disintegrate and people die."[3] Adam Smith argued that fixed asset spending was the "third rationale for the state, behind the provision of defense and justice."[4] Societies enjoy the use of "...highway, waterway, air, and rail systems that have allowed the unparalleled mobility of people and goods. Water-borne diseases are virtually nonexistent because of water and wastewater treatment, distribution, and collection systems. In addition, telecommunications and power systems have enabled our economic growth."[5]

This development happened over a period of several centuries. It represents a number of successes and failures in the past that were termed public works and even before that internal improvements. In the 21st century, this type of development is termed infrastructure. [6] Infrastructure can be described as tangible capital assets (income-earning assets), whether owned by private companies or the government.[7]

  1. ^ Esmaeili, Behzad, et al. "Inclusion of an Introduction to Infrastructure Course in a Civil and Environmental Engineering Curriculum." Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice (2016): 04016020
  2. ^ Goldsmith, H. (2015). Actors and innovations in the evolution of infrastructure services. The Economics of Infrastructure Provisioning, 23-94.
  3. ^ Hart, Steven D., et al. "Infrastructure and the Operational Art:A Handbook for Understanding, Visualizing, and Describing Infrastructure Systems" US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, (2014)
  4. ^ Tatom, J. A. (1991). Should government spending on capital goods be raised?. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, 73(3), 3-15. Tatom was citing Smith (1937), Book V. part 3, especially p. 682.
  5. ^ ASCE Critical Infrastructure Guidance Task Committee. "Guiding principles for the nation's critical infrastructure." American Society of Civil Engineers,2009.
  6. ^ Hart, Steven D., J. Ledlie Klosky, and Scott Katalenich. "Conceptual models for infrastructure leadership." Journal of Management in Engineering 30.3 (2013): 04014003.
  7. ^ Kliesen, K. L., & Smith, D. C. (2009). Digging into the infrastructure debate. The Regional Economies, 4-9. Accessed at [1]. The article emphasized the distinction between capital assets or capital stocks and capital flows. The latter is the annual or quarterly change in the capital stock, otherwise known as fixed investment, which is part of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This article focused on capital stocks.